


coffee cup prophesies

by cosimamanning



Series: the consequences of nurture [2]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Bad Parenting, Canonical Child Abuse, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 18:56:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11812158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosimamanning/pseuds/cosimamanning
Summary: Beth stares into coffee cups and tries to see the future.





	coffee cup prophesies

**Author's Note:**

> hi yeah so in the orphan black files it was revealed that beth was molested by her father until she was a teenager and i am very understandably distraught about this fact so this was a quick little fic about how i thought she might have dealt with that so if you think you might in any way get triggered please feel free to click away ! i don't actually cover the acts themselves (because, why) but they are heavily alluded to, so please be safe lovelies

Beth starts running not because she wants to, but because she has to. 

There’s the saying, she hears it, over and over again,  _ you can run but you can’t hide _ . 

She is a master in both of those things: running and hiding. 

Not because she  _ wants _ to be, but because she  _ has  _ to be. 

She’s good at it, running. 

When she wakes up in the morning her heart is already racing, pounding against her chest erratically, breath hitched, eyes frantically taking in her surroundings, desperately checking every nook and cranny to make sure that she’s alone, that she’s here, that she’s safe. 

Her heartbeat doesn’t slow down. 

Beth always keeps socks on her feet, because the floors are wooden and socks make it easier to slide, silent, creeping, past the big wooden door that looms ominously, like a reaper, at the end of the hallway. She holds her breath when she passes it, heart beating so loudly her ears feel like they’re fit to burst with the pressure of it, before scampering down the stairs, knuckles gripped white against the bannister. 

Her mother greets her with a smile and a plate of eggs, and Beth exhales. 

It’s a good day, then. 

“Good morning, sweetheart.” Beth smiles up at her tentatively as she sits at the table, tucking into her plate of eggs, chewing quickly, as though she doesn’t trust the peace of the moment―because she doesn’t, she never does―eyes wide and observant, taking in her surroundings. On the counter, the coffee machine churns away loyally, and she listens to the  _ drip drip drip  _ as deep, black liquid falls into the pot. 

“Morning,” she echoes back, and for a moment, both she and her mother can pretend that this is a normal morning, and that they are a normal family. Beth eats her eggs and stares at the coffee machine and her mother watches the bacon, sizzling on the pan, and Beth pointedly ignores the purpling above her hip where her shirt is riding up. 

Above them, there’s movement, and the two of them breathe in at the same time, the only noise the  _ drip  _ of the coffee pot and the cracking of the bacon. It’s easy to forget to breathe, sometimes, when you’re so used to hiding, so used to making yourself small. 

Beth blinks forcibly and goes back to eating her eggs, the motion repetitive, bringing her fork down to the plate and back to her mouth, chewing mechanically. 

_ It’s a good day _ , she reminds herself, like a prayer,  _ it’s a good day.  _

Her father walks down the stairs in his uniform, pristinely ironed, with the badges shining in the sunshine that creeps in from the kitchen window. He’s smiling, bright and toothy, and Beth has to remind herself to breathe again, and she smiles back at him because she knows she has to, because sometimes hiding means you have to pretend. 

“Morning Lizzie,” he beams, ruffling her hair, and Beth lets him, even though nobody calls her  _ Lizzie _ , just him. She hates it. (Hates him, too, but she can’t say that, not ever.) 

“Morning, dad,” she echoes, forcing color into her voice when all she wants to do is  _ scream _ , to fold into herself because her skin  _ crawls  _ with the effort of even looking at him, and she feels sick with guilt because this is her  _ father  _ and he loves her, and she’s supposed to love him except― 

Except she knows that this is not how it’s supposed to be. 

Beth smiles and reminds herself to breathe. 

“Morning baby.” His voice is more wolfish when he greets her mother, predatory, dark, and Beth looks pointedly at her eggs so she can ignore the way he grabs her, the way her mother fights the urge to flinch, the way he revels in his power. 

“Mike,” her mother responds, and, somehow, she makes it sound coy, but Beth can hear her voice shaking underneath, like a leaf. They’re both hiding, the two of them. Beth’s mother passes him a plate of bacon and eggs and pours him a hot cup of coffee, and Beth’s father sits at the table across from her, grabbing for the paper. 

It’s so  _ normal _ . 

“You excited for your track meet?” he asks her, and for a moment, Beth can forget, can pretend, and she nods, a small smile making its way onto her face, because despite the fact that running was a necessity for her, she loves it, genuinely. 

“Yeah, I’ve been getting faster, Coach says I’ll probably win.”

He smiles at her like he’s proud, and then the moment breaks, and Beth remembers, and she has to remind herself to breathe again, in and out, to calm down the racing of her heart, and she wants to scream because this is her  _ father  _ and she shouldn’t feel so unsafe around him. 

“I’d expect nothing less from my best girl,” he proclaims, and Beth smiles, weaker this time, because now she feels sick, looking down at the now empty plate. Her father passes her his empty mug of coffee, like he always does. 

“What do you see today, Lizzie? How’s my day gonna go?”

They make a game out of it. 

On the good days, when her father is feeling more like a father and less like a monster, he remembers the time that he and Beth would build forts and watch movies. A long time ago, it seems, they watched Harry Potter, and her eyes grew wide at the thought of prophecies at the bottom of teacups. 

Beth peers carefully at the residue at the bottom of the mug. 

Most days she doesn’t see anything, but if she imagines hard enough, sometimes shapes form, and she can weave something crafty enough to appease her father, make him pretend to be a father for a little bit longer. Anything to keep the darkness away. 

“I see a cloud,” she decides, finally, “I think you’re going to find something hidden, today.” Beth is very good at listening, because listening comes hand-in-hand with hiding. When she’s small and invisible, she hears many things, and she heard her father talking about a criminal he’d been chasing for weeks who’d evaded capture. 

He beams at her and shakes his head fondly. 

“I sure hope so, Lizzie, I sure hope so.”

He ruffles her hair again and kisses her mother a little too roughly before he walks out the door, and neither of them flinch. They square their shoulders and set their jaws and remind themselves to breathe, and they keep on going. 

The teachers at school never ask Beth if she’s okay. 

They call her name in the morning to make sure she’s there, a name on a list, just another face in the crowd, but to them,  _ Elizabeth Childs _ is no one spectacular. She sits in the middle of the classroom, not the front, where the more studious kids sit, eager to impress the teachers and answer the most questions, nor the back, where the troublemakers steal away to pass notes and gossip. She’s always hiding in plain sight, making herself small. 

It’s safest that way. 

The girl next to her asks if she can borrow paper, sometimes, and Beth gives it to her, but she doesn’t have many friends, doesn’t trust many people. She listens and takes her notes and does well on tests but not  _ too  _ well, never drawing attention to herself.

The other kids don’t bother her and she doesn’t bother them and she likes it that way. The teachers don’t notice. 

Nobody ever does.

After school she goes out to the track and  _ runs _ , lets her legs take her as fast as they can carry her, heart pounding in her ears, and sometimes it’s loud enough to drown out the panic, the memories, the voice in her head telling her she is  _ wrong _ , the crawling sensation up and down her skin. 

She runs and runs and runs but Beth can never outrun herself. 

At night she tucks herself into bed, pulls the covers over herself tightly, and prays to whatever forces that exist that her door will not open. 

Some nights she is lucky. 

Some nights she is not. 

Fairytales warned her about the monsters under her bed and in her closet and under the stairs, but the never warned her about the monster down the hall, eating breakfast in her kitchen, ruffling her hair and calling her  _ Lizzie _ . 

Beth knows the Boogeyman by name, and his name is  _ father _ , Mike Childs. 

On the good days she can pretend, can breathe, can calm the racing of her heart to a light jog, but on the bad days all she can do is clench her eyes shut and wait. She can’t run, she can’t hide. 

She’s helpless. 

On a morning after a bad day, Beth stares helplessly into a bowl of cereal. 

Her father walks down in his uniform, pristinely ironed, the badges shining in the sunlight. 

He’s supposed to stand for justice. He makes her sick. 

Beth thinks, glaring into her bowl of cereal, that one day she will be a detective, a cop, that she will bring men like her father to their knees and she will make them  _ suffer _ , that she will find a way to make Boogeymen  _ bleed _ . 

“Morning, Lizzie,” he greets, ruffling her hair, and Beth reminds herself to breathe. Her eyes are red from crying and her body aches with wrongness and she  _ hates  _ him, hates him with her entire being. 

“Morning, dad.”

She reminds herself to breathe. 

He finishes his breakfast and pushes his coffee mug towards her and Beth looks into it with deadly focus, stomach churning, because no food sits well after a bad day, because she feels  _ sick _ , because she sees that he feels nothing at all. 

“What do you see?”

“I see a gun,” she responds, simply, shrugging at him. “You’re going to die.” His expression sours, and she knows she’s going to pay for it later, but at the moment she can’t bring herself to care. 

“That’s not a nice thing to say, Lizzie,” he grinds out, voice rough and predatory and mean, more monster than father, and Beth wonders if he was ever a father in the first place. Beth shrugs and keeps staring at her bowl of cereal. 

Her mother gets a call later and she cries, but Beth thinks it’s from relief more than sadness. 

They go to a funeral where men in uniforms sing praises of a man they claim stood for justice, and Beth listens to them, thinks about the bad days, hears the pounding of her heart in her ears, and doesn’t cry. 

Afterwards, she runs, as far and as fast as her feet can take her. 

She doesn’t look back. 

**Author's Note:**

> #BethDeservedBetter
> 
> thanks so much for reading, comments and kudos are appreciated as always! you can prompt me on my tumblr, danaryas, in the post-ob finale haze


End file.
